So how do the Sharks bottle whatever it was the earned them that 2-1 victory over the Boston Bruins last night and bring a six-pack with ’em to the rink on Saturday night when the Phoenix Coyotes show up.

“It’s easy. You play the same way. Play hockey, have fun out there,” Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “Guys yesterday, you’ve never seen our team skate that much lately. Forwards were coming back, the d were skating. It’s the same thing – play for fun, play free.”

So why didn’t that happen in those losses to Anaheim and Los Angeles?

“We just didn’t have enough energy,” Vlasic said. “The effort was there, we were there, but the energy wasn’t. We didn’t skate as well as we did yesterday.”

*****The print edition story for Saturday — taking it’s cue from Daniel Winnik’s game-winning goal against Boston — will take a look at secondary scoring, or the lack thereof, and how it helps explain how the Sharks find themselves in this predicament with eight games left. We’ll save those thoughts for later.

But Todd McLellan did have an interesting way of framing things that works at several levels when talking about where things stand with his team.

“I think we’re in playoffs right now,” he said and that works for me both figuratively — as I’m guessing he intended it — and literally. Lose four games (or at least come away empty-handed in four games) and the Sharks do not advance. I could be wrong, but I don’t think 92 points will be enough and that’s where San Jose would be.

*****McLellan also had some interesting things to say about how his team’s mindset differs from those of many of the teams the Sharks are now competing with for a playoff spot — and how San Jose’s mindset needs to change.

“We’re in a battle for playoff position and we’re looked at the disappointing team because we’re in the battle,” McLellan said. “There’s other teams that are very, very excited about being in this battle because of maybe where they should have been. The demeanor around those types of teams is different than the demeanor around ours and we have to address the mental aspect of that, too.

“We have to accept where we are right now – that’s where we are. Would we like to change it? Yes. But this is where we are so now accept the challenge. We have to be excited about the opportunity to get there, too.”

*****Andrew Desjardins deserves as much credit as Winnik for that winning goal last night, picking the puck off Tyler Seguin’s stick, zipping a perfect pass to Winnik for his shot that beat Bruins goalie Tim Thomas. Here’s what McLellan had to say about Desjardins’ season so far:

“Desi’s been a big factor in our team. I think he came to camp desperate to play here and wanting to play here and we saw that for a nice period of time. And then what happens if you find yourself here and it feels comfortable and then it slips a little. I thought that happened with him, like most players, and he had to be reminded a few times. And now he’s a big part of our team.”

*****No word on when TJ Galiardi will be back on the ice, but he wasn’t practicing with his teammates today. And McLellan repeated, when asked, that Galiardi’s upper body injury is not a concussion.

Dan Boyle, Brent Burns and Ryane Clowe didn’t skate today either, but McLellan said it was just a decision to make rest the priority and all would be in the lineup against Phoenix.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.